


When the Night is Long

by WritingIsMyCoffee



Category: Final Space (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, More of a frienship than a romance in this fic anyway, One-Sided Attraction, hey @ TBS season 2 pls???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 18:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14478705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingIsMyCoffee/pseuds/WritingIsMyCoffee
Summary: When it comes to Quinn, Gary wants more than he'll ever receive.That doesn't mean he takes what they have for granted.





	When the Night is Long

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Final Space because I heard it was funny. I wasn't expecting to feel genuine emotions???
> 
> Title comes from that one song that absolutely wrecked me in episode 9. We all know the one.

If Gary considers himself pretty decent in the looks department, then Quinn is a resplendent goddess of beauty.

It’s not just because of how full her lips are or how the curve of her hips perfectly proportions her upper body. No, it’s in the way Quinn carries herself. The way her deep, dazzling eyes narrow when she’s hyper-focused on something. The way her back straightens up when there’s a job to be done and a need for it to be done pronto. The way her hands curl into fists at her side when they’re in the thick of danger, then sit precariously on her waist to mask the lingering tension.

The way her lips curl when he finally makes her laugh. The light sigh she gives when he tells a joke and it doesn’t land, but she knows why it doesn’t. How she can tell when he’s not exactly in his own head and his thoughts are drifting endlessly into space.

See, Quinn can read Gary like a book. Which admittedly isn’t a hard task to do since he shamelessly wears his heart on his sleeve. Nevertheless, it is equal amounts terrifying and comforting how she’ll take one look at him and know exactly how he’s feeling.

He can play around and flirt like he was created by a dating simulator, but witty comments and cheesy one-liners can’t cover-up the trauma lying underneath his smile. It’s been a hard-fought battle of five years to keep himself sane, then just a few months to salvage the pieces of his broken heart. Ever wonder how you can break someone so easily? Set them in an environment where they lose the basic right of contact with living beings, then give them a handful of people to care about just to strip them away.

Gary is an easy crier. Hell, he cries at least once a day. One day Quinn even catches him crying, alone in the pessimistically dark confines of his room, and crosses delicately into his threshold. Through his blurred vision, he remembers seeing her kneel beside him and place a hesitant hand on his shoulder. She never asked why he was crying (they all knew the reason. It was the same reason neither of them could talk to Little Cato without him running away); she simply stayed with him and waited until he could take in a full breath of conjured oxygen. The only words she ever spoke to him in that single stretch of infinity was, “You don’t have to cry in the dark next time if you don’t want to.”

Less than a week later, he watches his dad burn in an explosion of cosmic energy and catches her on the fully illuminated main deck soon after.

See Quinn just _knows_ him. She has some kind of ESP that only senses Gary’s ever-changing emotions. It’s great and fantastic and makes his heart swell, but it also leaves this soul-crushing weight of longing to fill in any of his gaps. He’s been pining after this amazing, badass lady for half a decade, and he knows she _definitely_ doesn’t care for him the way he does to her. Credit where credit’s due, he didn’t make a great first impression, before and after he was handed a heavy prison sentence. That will forever and always be his fault and not even a temporal worm can change that.

But, _still_. He spent five years sending her his logs, only to find out she never received a single one of them. Not even the one with his homemade guitar. In many of those videos, he knocked down his walls and spilled his guts out, hoping for some kind of response in return. It was foolish, but it was all he could rely on.

Gary had no one back on earth waiting for him when his prison sentence was over. He still doesn’t now, even with the Earth being partly destroyed or whatever. His mom died when he was a baby and his dad…well, everyone on the _Galaxy One_ knows that story.

In the end, he was hoping for a chance to make a connection. Any at all.

For the first time in a long time, Gary was hoping someone was waiting for him to come back.

Now Quinn has family waiting for her on Earth, or somewhere safer in the empty cosmos. He’s kept track of the various members she’s listen throughout their various conversations. A sister in California, an uncle in Toronto, parents in Iowa, some cousins in Oklahoma, and many others. At this point, the list of Quinn relatives stretches farther than Gary’s useless resume.

And the point of it all is Quinn is loved and cherished by many, and Gary is just a sad, lonely human being who craves even just an ounce of that affection.

They argue all the time, and nine times out of ten it’s because of something dumb he did. Things will get heated, he won’t take stuff seriously, and she’ll fume like an active volcano until he finally grows a brain cell and apologizes. He hardly ever gets angry with her though; he just has a bad habit of backpedaling on his mistakes. If anything, he deserves the furrow of her brow and the grit of her teeth.

There are rare occasions, however, where he does get a little peeved with her. On those rare occasions when he does, it’s utter frustration over how trapped they are in their current situation and how no matter what they do, they won’t be able to save everyone, and Earth will still be in chaos even if it doesn’t get sucked into the breach. She’ll tell him _This is the best course of action_ and he’ll protest and say _No, this is the best way to do this_ because he doesn’t want to give into the idea that he could lose what little sliver of a family he’s been given in all these years.

It only ever takes a few minutes for the fire in his belly to singe his pride and rationalize his thoughts. He’ll agree with her or find a way to compromise on a solution they are both comfortable working with, but he never “wins” the argument.

Maybe he’s been trapped in an argument his whole life, and he’s just never found the right words to win.

What if it had been as simple as asking Lord Commander to please show them mercy that could have saved Avocato? What if it had been one last tearful plea to prevent his father from ever setting foot on that dam spaceship? What if he had said hello like a normal person at that bar and never stolen those clothes and spoken to Quinn like an actual human being instead of being the biggest idiot in the freaking galaxy?

Those are the victories he will never have, no matter what comes out of his mouth.

And Gary thinks Quinn knows this.

He thinks this because she never gives him the silent treatment or lashes out at him for speaking his genuine opinion on something. She’ll nod and tell him why she doesn’t think it’s right, but it’s always with a respectful tone and manner.

They are polar opposites in every aspect. She’s focused, he’s got the attention span of KVN. She has trained combat experience, he’s been in one too many bar fights. She’ll frown when he smiles and yell protests while he screams in terror.

Yet, there is this unspoken balance between them. Gary knows this, Quinn may realize it, but there’s no denying they work well together. For ever loss they’ve endured, their combined strengths have saved many lives to outweigh those causalities. She’s ice, he’s fire, and together they can create a steam that will fog the Lord Commander and the Infinity Guard out of the universe forever.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline pumping through his body or the ugly twist in his gut telling him something is going to go wrong, but as they all stare out at the Lord Commander’s armada Gary thinks of all these little facts and is at peace. He trusts Quinn with his life, and at this point he feels safe to say that trust goes both ways. If this is the end, he’ll die protecting Mooncake. He’ll die protecting Little Cato. He’ll die protecting Quinn, though he doubts she’ll need much of his help.

He’ll die with the knowledge that in another lifetime, Quinn may have actually given him a chance.

It’s enough for him. It’s more than enough for him.


End file.
